petermorwood

We have buzzards at the bottom of the garden.

Well, in fact they're in a tree clear across the far side of the meadow behind the house, and now the two youngsters are flying we've got an impressive demonstration of The Use of Thermal Updraft as a Factor in Energy-Saving Flight.

Odd that neither of us noticed the parents, because that nest must have been there for quite a while if the kids went airborne in the past few days. We both heard them, but there are so many bird-noises from the mallards, teal, snipe, moorhens, coots, jackdaws, swallows, martins, ravens, hoodies, woodies, pheasants and unidentified others around the place that (not having heard a buzzard before) I couldn't have picked it out.

Now of course I feel a bit foolish, because the sound is definitely that of a raptor; in fact, very close to the red-tailed hawk "keeeee" that’s become a sound-effect cliché (see here.) Now I know what to listen for, I might even get a photo.

It's nice to live in the country.

Extra Bit: small wonder the two birds sound similar, they're both members of the buteo family. Obviously the Red-Tailed hawk has an American accent... The Hawk Conservancy Trust website has the Red-Tail here and the European Buzzard here, complete with .wav files of what they sound like.